Tuesday, 25 June 2013

So, the other day I was thinking about the different events out there, and the differences in the rules, and Jon and I talked about a post we saw that was suposed to be about the differences in the rules in various promotions, but really didn't tell you anything.

SO I thought, why not make a fairly comprehensive chart, of the various promotions that I know about with the differences and similarities of each. I tried to list all the things that people might care about. This chart generally applies to ADULT GI DIVISIONS. Of course ADCC is nogi, and when I could, I made comments about a promotions nogi rules as well. IBJJF the rules are identical for gi/nogi so that is why there are no notes about the differences there.

If there are any mistakes, omissions, or things you would like added, please leave a comment, or message me on facebook, twitter, or reddit, or however else you want to contact me. If there is another promotion out there that hosts events in more then one city and has an easily accessed rule set, send me the info, and I will try to add them. I'd like this to be as comprehensive as possible!

I know the chart doesn't fit perfectly in my stupid layout, sorry about that, I haven't spent that much time trying to make it all responsive and beautiful. As a programmer, I am ashamed, but I'd rather get this information out sooner and deal with making it absolutely beautiful later.

If you know 100% the answer to any place I have left as a question mark, please also let me know. I couldn't find anything in those events rules books to confirm or deny how they handle the situations.

If you see a little Number like this 9999 Click on it, it will open a cool little tooltip with more information about it. They aren't the prettiest, but it sure beats scrolling up and down, or clicking and getting automatically scrolled down.

Each heading links to that organizations most current rules (that I could find).

1 - OJA - kids they use round robin (usually under age 8, sometimes under 11)

2 - 4 fights in the round robin, then if there is a tie, they do a single elimination bracket to determine winners. Divisions of 2 will do a best of 3, divisions of 3, you fight each guy twice, divisions of 4 I think you get only 3 fights.

3 - I see some posts saying they don't do day before anymore, we haven't had one one these around anymore, and there was some controversy about the weigh ins the last event, so I wouldn't count on this information being 100% accurate.

For the qualifying tournaments, many divisions, you must win the absolute to earn a trip. It varies by divisions how well you must do in your weight class to qualify, Normally it's top 4, but sometimes it is top 8.

5 - Five does not give advantages at all, so nothing for sub attempts, but in the case of a draw, sub attempts are the first thing that is considered when choosing a winner.

6 -ADCC does not use advantages at all.

7 - 2 points if you end up in a guard, 3 points if you end up in side control or mount.

8 - Naga has some strange rules about take downs in NOGI, where sometimes you only get 1 point. This chart is about Gi Rules only. You are best off reading page 19 or their rule book.

9 - ADCC gives 2 points if you finish the takedown in a guard position, and 4 if you finish passed the guard(like side control or mount)

10 - Grapplers Quest does NOT give points for knee on belly in NOGI.

11 - ADCC considers reversals as sweeps as well, and sweeps that end passed the guard earn 4 points.

12 - ADCC has pretty convoluted match times. national and qualifier events have 6 minutes for the first rounds, and 8 for the final, the world championships has 10 and 20. Also note, ADCC does not score points for the first 1/2 of the match.

13 - Overtime is 1/2 the match length. Only 1 overtime per match.

14 - Kneebars are Allowed for ALL adults in NOGI at Naga

15 - Kneebars are legal for all adults in gi, and nogi at Grappler's Quest, they are even legal for advanced kids/teens in nogi.

16 - Heel Hooks are legal in the Advanced and Pro and Superfight NOGI divisions only at grappler's quest. ***the OGA, who grappler's quest works with in Ontario, does NOT allow Heel Hooks, so they would never be legal, in Ontario.

20 - Calf crushes are NOT legal in Gi at Grapplers Quest, but are in advanced/professional and brown/black. They have contradictory rules on their website, so I would confirm with them at the event before going for one in the Gi divisions.

21 - Slams ARE allowed, but only to escape a sub, slams from guard are not. Yes, ADCC is crazy.(not for beginners or intermediate)

Tuesday, 18 June 2013

As you probably know, my shoulder is fucked. So I won't be competing in most (likely any) of these events! But, I thought, just because I can't compete, doesn't mean I can't talk a bit about them and help the potential competitors get an idea what each is about and the history and whatnot of them.

Saturday June 22nd - Ottawa International BJJ Championships. This is the second year for this event. I thought I wrote a blog post about this one last year, but it appears I did not. So, here is a mini re-cap. It was pretty much BTT Canada vs team Renzo Gracie, with a sprinkling of other teams mixed in. It was part of a fit-day expo of some sort, and there were fitness model competitions, crossfit, and pole dancing demos going on in the same venue. We brought a team of 4 to the event (myself, Alasdair, Greg M, and Jon), and managed to place 3rd overall in adult gi. This year, it seems like they have a much larger variety of teams coming out to the event, which will be good. There are a bunch of brown belts registered and it's shaping up to be a pretty epic super fight like brown belt absolute. Here is the facebook event for the tournament and here is the events official website. Registration closes TONIGHT AT MIDNIGHT. So get on that. Now.

Saturday June 29th - Five Grappling presents Ontario 1. These guys are shaking things up a bit. They are tweaking the rules, bringing in HUGE super fights, a ridiculous seminar(Marcelo and Xande), and tonnes of prizes and gifts(gear bags, sub prizes, lanyards, something from storm, and more) for the competitors. They have been working their asses off to promote this event and I really hope the community supports them for all their effort.

The rule tweaks (that I LOVE):

Kneebars and wrist locks for all adults. Personally, I maybe would have kept keebars to blue and up, but the current IBJJF rules that don't allow them until brown is just silly. I think Kneebars are great, and they areally aren't that much more dangerous than an armbar, unless you try to be a hero and twist out and bust your know knee up. Wrist locks are the same, as long as people aren't assholes about it, they are perfectly safe.

No Advantages. This means no more almost passing, or almost sweeping and sitting on an advantage for 10 minutes to squeak out a win.

2 points for coming up from the double guard pull. This should mean that people will be more willing to come up, b/c if they get re-swept, the score is still even, instead of them only having an advantage, and the other guy having 2 points. I think it will make for a more aggressive game.

6 minute matches, ala Abu Dhabi Pro. I like it, it means people can push the pace, and not worry about having to fight for 10 minutes. and it means if people are going to stall, we only have to watch 6 minutes of it, instead of 10.

Weigh in 1-4 hours before your division. This means, if you are close, you don't have to starve yourself all day. It also means when it's time for a division to start, we don't have to wait for everyone to get weighed in. This should make for a much smoother process.

This tournament got input from 25 or so of the top BJJ competitors in the world when they were planning this event, and making the rules, and everything. They are trying to make the sport more spectator and competitor friendly and I think they are headed in the right direction. I will likely be helping out with tables, or something at this event

Saturday July 6th - Mat MilitiaLadies Sub Only Show. I was pumped for this event when they announced it. I was going to be in it, but now I can't. I think the divisions are full, but you should totally go watch it and support the event. They are accepting donations for the Breast Cancer Society of Canada at the event and the whole thing is being run to raise money for that. There is no entry fee for the competitors, but everyone is being encouraged to donate to the cause. Some of Ontario's top ladies are competing and it's going to be an excellent showcase of jiu jitsu! I will likely be helping referee at this event.

Saturday July 13th - IBJJF New York Open. Does it seem like they just had one here? Why yes, they did! It was a solid event, and I'd go back, If I could compete. I think it will be a bit smaller this time around, since it's been less then 6 months since the last one, and Mundials just happened and no one likes to compete in the summer. That being said, It's a good venue, reliable competition and they have nice big medals. So, if you are in the area, it's worth checking out. Pre-register only, and don't be that guy or girl who complains about registration closing early because it's full and you booked your flight and hotel before registering and now are screwed. Register first, then book your travel.

Saturday July 13th - OJA Sub Only Event. This is going down in Thornhill, which is close to Toronto. It's GI only, and that's about all the information that is available at this point. It will be no time limit I believe, kids age 11 and up and should be a lovely time. I hope they can get more information, and registration, and whatnot out soon, or this might be a dud. They tried to have one about 6 months ago, but scheduling and venue conflicts just made it not happen. At least, if it does end up sucking, the ladies have the Mat Militia event the week before to have fun at. I will likely be refereeing (though, not much to referee in sub-only), and or supporting my team mates.

Saturday July 20th - Grappling Industries: Summer Havok They recently announced that they will be doing this tournament INDEPENDENTLY. This gets them free from the political fight between the OJA and the OGA, and hopefully means that those people who are strictly on either side can now support the event. That being said, I have talked to the guys who run this(since I work for the event, and happen to be sponsored by them) and they have assured me that they have a great insurance policy that has equal coverage to what the OGA or OJA have. So, don't worry, It is perfectly SAFE to compete at this event.

Alright, on to the good stuff! EIGHT trips are being awarded as prizes for absolutes. TWO of those are going to the ladies!! They will also have prizes from their sponsors, as usual. The rest of the tournament will be as usual for these guys, round robin (4 fights), morning weigh ins, no gi on for the weigh ins, competent referees and a good atmosphere. They will be recording the fights, but they have been slow to get them posted. They don't mind if you record your fights yourself. One difference will be, since there is no OGA registration to deal with, the process in the morning should be much simpler and smoother! YAY! I really hope my shoulder is magically better in time for this, because it seems like every time they put trips on for the ladies, I'm broken. Last time it was the concussion, now my shoulder. I competed at the last one in Montreal, when there was no trip of course. (I didn't win anyway, so I suppose it doesn't matter that there was no trip heh) I'll be refereeing at this event!

Saturday August 3rd - IBJJF TORONTO Last year was the first year the IBJJF brought their event to Ontario and it was a well run event. It was smaller than most of their tournaments, but just as well run. I think this year will be bigger and better than last. Now that people know that the IBJJF run a great event, I think they will be more willing to shell out the slightly higher entry fee to participate. That being said, this past Ontario Open was run as well as any IBJJF tournament I've been to, so they may have to step up their game if they want to lure people out. Here is the facebook event for the tournament.The IBJJF only uses brown and black belt referees, so I won't be working at this event, but, if my shoulder is healed up, I'll be competing.

Saturday August 17th - OJA Northern Ontario ChampionshipsThis will be the first BJJ tournament in Northern Ontario (that I am aware of). It's a bit of a trek for most of us, but Sudbury is a pretty beautiful area, so make a weekend camping trip of it or something. This should be a solid event, but I have a feeling it will be small. Hopefully they get people from Manitoba out or something.

Saturday August 17th - Grappling Industries Montreal: Nogi Worlds EditionThis is likely where I will be this weekend. It's not that I don't like sudbury, but the OJA separates blues and purples, and there are only about 10 purple belt girls (being generous) in ontario, and none of them are near sudbury. There are lots of blue and purple belt girls in the Montreal area, so the chance of having someone to compete with is much higher at this event. Also, I'd rather have 4 fights than 1 or 2. That being said, you know the drill by now about these events. The Montreal ones are smaller, but equally well run. They get a lot of MMA and Judo guys out, so the vibe is a bit different. Be prepared to see guys almost lose by stalling b/c they don't know you can't just sit in side control to win a match. They are giving out 3 trips to NoGi worlds at this one (edit: confirmed: one of which is for the ladies), so If you are hunting for a prize trip, check it out.

That about round off the summer. I hope I didn't miss any. There are a million IBJJF tournaments happening all over the world now, a bunch of which are this summer, chicago, boston, atlanta. They aren't really in my area, and I won't be travelling to them, so I didn't get into the details on them. All will be solid tournaments, in theory, so If you are in those areas, check out the IBJJF schedule for more info.

In September we will likely have another Grappling Industries tournament, and the GTA classic, but I don't think either has been officially announced and neither has a confirmed venue and date, so I won't post about them officially let.

Friday, 7 June 2013

So, I've been trying to
figure out the best way to blog about this whole trip and tournament and my
experiences around it and have decided to have 2 posts. The first (this
one) about the tournament and then later, as I have time, I will write
the novel that will be my experience over the entire trip and all the fun and
not so fun things I did and didn't do over the 9 days.

There is so much to talk
about, that I am going to break this down into a few sections and sub
sections. The tournament in general: broken down by good, and bad, and
then go over some interesting fights, some results from my teammates and
friends, and who knows what else.

The tournament in
General

The good stuff

The Venue,
known as "The Walter Pyramid" was pretty much perfect. It
fits 12 mat areas with ample space for the bullpen, check in area, podium,
and t-shirt distributor. The floor was restricted to athletes only,
and didn't have space around the edges for people to stand around, so it
kept the viewing angles nice and clean. They had a camera on one of
the mats all day, every day, which was broadcast on a giant screen, which
also showed commercials for the sponsors every once and a while.
This was a cool touch, it took us a while to figure out what the seemingly
random music that started up every once and a while was. There was
enough space in the stands for all the spectators, and for the finals on
Sunday they brought down the extra section and it was all pretty well
packed. The seats were a mix of benches and chairs. I would
recommend going for the chairs, because the lack of backs on the benches
gets annoying pretty fast when you are there for 10+hours a day 4 days in
a row. The venue was pretty easy to find, and parking was only
5 bucks a day, which isn't unreasonable at all.

·The
Food! It wasn't cheap, but
man oh man was it every tasty. Silvio’s BBQ provided the main dishes.
The garlic fries were absolutely amazing, and the chicken was divine.
It was also insanely expensive, $7 for fries, and like 12 bucks for a
chicken sandwich, but it was totally worth it. They only take cash, which
was fairly inconvenient, but I had enough cash for what I wanted so it's all
good. The other place I had food from was the Acai place. I can't remember
what it was called though. The bowls were quite a bit smaller than places
for acai bowls in Costa Mesa for about the same price. But I suppose you
are paying for the convenience of not having to leave the venue. The big
pain in the ass is that apparently last year people spilled them all over the
seats so they didn't allow them in the stands. So I missed a bunch of
fights to eat acai. Worth it I suppose, but it would be nice to be able
to eat my lunch / breakfast / dinner / snack in the stands and not miss any of
the jiu jitsu that was happening. There was also a typical stadium food
stand with pretzels and Starbucks coffee, but why would you want that when you
could have Silvio’s or acai bowls!!

General Structure and whatnot: Like most IBJJF tournaments, it all started and ran on
time from what I could tell. I didn't have a schedule handy
throughout the day, but my team mates all fought at around the division
start time. On Saturday, the referees were all on the mats, and 8 or
9 of them started exactly at the start time, with the other 3 or 4
starting within a minute of that. It was pretty impressive to see a
tournament manage the sheer numbers of people that were there to compete.
Getting my free t-shirt and Gracie Mag was a smooth process as usual as
well. I don't think everyone realized they were available because the line
never seemed very long. They were tucked under the bleachers near
the bullpen. The mat coordinators seemed to do a pretty good job,
sometimes they were a little quiet, but I didn't see or hear anyone
talking about being DQ'd because they didn't know they were up, or didn't
find their mat organizers on time. The customer service people were
really nice too, when I went there to withdraw because of my shoulder they
were very sympathetic and stuff. It was a quick and easy process too.

The level of competition was insane! Seriously, so many black belts in one building.
It was ridiculous. 12 mats, all running brown and black belt
fights. It was impossible to watch them all! We couldn't keep
track of all the fighters we wanted to watch! It was also insane to
see guys who we thought would crush their divisions lose. It seems
like what used to be a purple is now blue, and what used to be brown is
purple, and so on. In 90% of the non-black belt divisions I watched,
the guys/gals on the podium need new belts. There are a few cases
where this isn't true, like Dominyka, who just got her brown belt, and
some of the smaller ladies divisions, where even losing your first fight
got you on the podium. But, 9/10 divisions, it was far past time for a
promotion for the finalists. This made for some pretty excellent fights at
all the belt levels but also it seems like people are after medals more than
progression.

The Sponsors. There
were plenty of gear companies represented, and also some multi-brand
companies like fighters market and whatnot. If you needed some new
gear, you could easily get it. The prices were reasonable as well.
Koral had a pretty sweet deal of 2 gis and some other crap for like
$200 bucks. I think Jon would have gone for it, if our bags weren't
really full already. Shoyoroll did a special tournament only
release. We were supposed to get one for a teammate, but there was a
giant line 3 hours before the release so he was out of luck. It’s
cool for tournaments to have sponsors like gear companies in case they are
mega anal (like the IBJJF is) and the gi(s) you brought were not legal.
That being said, you should bring proper fitting, non-torn gis to
tournaments and bring more than one, two at least, 3 is better.
Pants tear all the time.

Alright, on to the bad
stuff, this is not a short list, and considering the prestige and cost and
everything that goes along with "the Worlds" this list should be
non-existent.

Terrible Refereeing, Favoritism, and Inconsistencies:
These three all go hand in
hand. They were DQ'ing some people for knee reaps, ignoring them
completely for others, and only penalizing for others. It didn't
matter if there was a sub involved or not. They gave some people
advantages for the saddest excuse for a submission and others which looked
insanely tight got nothing. They gave advantages and didn't give
advantages for almost sweeps/passes/takedowns just as willy-nilly. And
then there were the penalties. The most blatant of which was the penalty
Ary Farias getting a penalty for leaving the mat area before is hand was
raised. Now, this IS technically a penalty, but, seriously, probably
50% or more of the winners went out of bounds after they won. Let's
also not forget there is a penalty for excessive celebrating, and let me
tell you, there was a lot of that going on, and NO ONE got penalized for
that either. It was frightening to watch the referees give
decisions. I don't really want to get into it too much, I know, as
an Atos member, for me to say "Atos got screwed" is going to
just sound like I’m whining because my team lost a few matches. It
wasn't just Atos though; so many people’s hard work and dedication were
wasted/ruined by the incompetent or just plain biased referees.

Long Days Schedule Changes: The tournament was originally scheduled to be 5 days.
Wednesday to Sunday. A few days before the event, they cut it
down to 4, jamming everything in, and making those 4 days ridiculously
long. The competition started at 9 am Thurs through Saturday and
some divisions were not scheduled to start until 7PM or later While this
isn't so bad for a local competitor, who can come and go as they please,
for the competitors who planned their travel around the pre-scheduled, and
thought they would only need to be at the tournament wed/thurs and booked
their fights to accommodate that, it kind of screwed them over. It
also made for extremely long days for the coaches. I'd much rather
have to be at a venue for 5 days that are 10-5, then 4 days that are 9am
to 9-9:30 or pm.

The Sound System: Most of the time, it was barely ok, there many
times where you couldn’t understand who they were calling or what mat
It was pretty annoying. Some of the announcers were better than
others, but it was generally very muffled. The female announcers
were the most difficult to understand, they were quite, and their accent
was pretty thick. I've been to tournaments that had much worse PA
systems, and ones that have much better.

No ATM. This
is pretty self-explanatory. Thankfully the Acai bowl place took credit
cards through an IPad so I was fine, but the BBQ took cash only, and
it was more expensive then the acai so that was a pain in the butt.
The IPad for taking credit cards was pretty cool. I think
that's a technology that has been pretty easily available in the States
for a long time, but it's pretty new in Canada I think. Anyway, not
a horrible problem, but rather inconvenient if you don't know in advance.

Not knowing the rules. Fighters, coaches, referee, you name them, and they
didn't know the rules. Seriously, People calling for points when
they most definitely shouldn't. People doing techniques that aren't
legal in their division (and not just reaping). I saw a blue belt
dive on a knee bar. The worst was in the semi-finals, a black belt
stuck in a triangle, on his feet, walked right out of bounds. There
is a rule, you cannot flee deliberately out of bounds to escape a
submission it’s an immediate DQ. This guy didn't seem to realize
that this was an offense at all, let alone one that warranted a DQ!

Poor Sportsmanship: Lots of people were guilty of this. From cheering
and carrying on because someone won because of a penalty for the other guy
after the match was over (Ary), to athletes skirting the knee-reap rule
and injuring their opponents with obvious inward knee pressure. I'm
all for team spirit, and supporting your team mates, but there was far too
much excessive chanting, heckling, booing, and whatnot. I'm fine
with celebrating your wins, especially hard fought battles, but to boo
competitors on the podium, or any of the other crap that was happening was
not acceptable.

Terrible Score Keepers: These high school students cost several athletes wins.
They were too busy messing around on their cell phones to score a
match properly. It was awful. They missed scores many times,
and put them on the wrong side more than once. One of the Miyao's, I
Believe, Joao, ended up losing his match because the score board said he
was up an advantage, but either the referee, or the score keeper screwed
up, and in the end, the advantage was the other guys and he lost.
There were plenty of other cases where the score was messed up and
it caused so much confusion. A tournament that charges 95 bucks a
shot, and has probably 3000 people should be able to hire competent table
workers.

Ontario's Performance: It was a rough day in the office for most of the
athletes from Ontario. Only a couple made it to the podium and many
lost in the first round. Not performing poorly was Open Mat's Scott
Bacon (Gold) and Ostap M (Bronze). Sadly, Ostap forgot to register for
the absolute, so didn't get a chance to double medal. The guys from
Pura went 1-3; Toronto BJJ had a rough day as well. I am probably
missing a few others, but I can't think of them. It's crazy to see
competitors that destroy on the local scene lose at tournaments like this.
Especially ones that perform so well at other huge tournaments like
Pans. I think this partially goes back to the level of competition,
and the travel, time difference, not eating regularly, and all the other
things that go along with a tournament like this. Whatever, Next
year will be better!!

Gender Bias: The
male black belts had the quarters, semis, and finals, all on Sunday.
The Women only the finals. How does that make any sense?
My only theory is that some of the women's black belt divisions did not
have enough competitors in them to support having semis and finals on
Sunday, but I don't recall any of the podiums not having 4 competitors on
them.

I had some other crap to
write about, but I can't remember now. Or, I've decided it's not worth getting
into. Overall the tournament gets a B or B+. We'll be going
back next year, of course, because it's one of the only events I can get more
then 1 or 2 fights in a competition.

I think that's enough rambling
for now, I’ll write more about how the trip in general went next week while I
am at a conference in Portland with nothing to do in the evenings.